My Freshman Year 41-66
In this section of My Freshman Year, I noticed Nathan becoming more specific about the personalities developing over the year with students in her hall, and in other dorms as well. Students meet their own friends, on their own time, and do their own things with them. Even with the promise of doing a hall movie, or watching the Super Bowl, few students followed through. I notice how in my own dorm, many students acted the same way. They said they would attend a meeting or club or activity, but like the students in My Freshman Year, they opted out at the last second. Another similarity I noticed between Bloomsburg and AnyU was the community interest sheet the RA's wanted students to fill out. I too had to fill one out, and not everyone actually handed their sheet in. From my experience at Bloomsburg so far, I believe one reason upperclassman may not hand in the interest sheet is because in the past once we handed it in, we really never saw any result. As much as any college wants to build "community" between new students, it never really works out. Students, from the book and from my experience, will do what they want, and build their own community on their own with no pressure. So far I'm really enjoying this book and comparing how different and alike Nathan's experience is to my own.
On Ethnography
Something that really caught my interest while reading On Ethnography was when the author stated that as an ethnographer, you are always wanting to figure things out and explain why they happen, while others may just accept everything for how it is, and never really think about it. Thinking to myself, I noticed how much I may do this. For example, food on campus. I never think about how it gets there, I just know it will be there, and I just accept it and never think twice about the work and preparation that may go into it. As I read further into this book, I am beginning to understand just how much work goes into only one topic or area to study. All of the preparation, studying, reading, and relevancy that is needed would be very difficult to do, even for a simple topic, like the juggler in this chapter. I also found it interesting that ethnographers take their original ideas and build and learn on them. I do find this book interesting in some respect, but most of the time I'm confused on what the author is trying to get across to the reader. It seems to me like a lot of information about a lot of different topics in a small amount of time.
In this section of My Freshman Year, I noticed Nathan becoming more specific about the personalities developing over the year with students in her hall, and in other dorms as well. Students meet their own friends, on their own time, and do their own things with them. Even with the promise of doing a hall movie, or watching the Super Bowl, few students followed through. I notice how in my own dorm, many students acted the same way. They said they would attend a meeting or club or activity, but like the students in My Freshman Year, they opted out at the last second. Another similarity I noticed between Bloomsburg and AnyU was the community interest sheet the RA's wanted students to fill out. I too had to fill one out, and not everyone actually handed their sheet in. From my experience at Bloomsburg so far, I believe one reason upperclassman may not hand in the interest sheet is because in the past once we handed it in, we really never saw any result. As much as any college wants to build "community" between new students, it never really works out. Students, from the book and from my experience, will do what they want, and build their own community on their own with no pressure. So far I'm really enjoying this book and comparing how different and alike Nathan's experience is to my own.
On Ethnography
Something that really caught my interest while reading On Ethnography was when the author stated that as an ethnographer, you are always wanting to figure things out and explain why they happen, while others may just accept everything for how it is, and never really think about it. Thinking to myself, I noticed how much I may do this. For example, food on campus. I never think about how it gets there, I just know it will be there, and I just accept it and never think twice about the work and preparation that may go into it. As I read further into this book, I am beginning to understand just how much work goes into only one topic or area to study. All of the preparation, studying, reading, and relevancy that is needed would be very difficult to do, even for a simple topic, like the juggler in this chapter. I also found it interesting that ethnographers take their original ideas and build and learn on them. I do find this book interesting in some respect, but most of the time I'm confused on what the author is trying to get across to the reader. It seems to me like a lot of information about a lot of different topics in a small amount of time.